Jackson may seem an unusual choice for someone whose resume includes St. Jude, Yale, Washington and Beijing but for Junfeng Wang, MD, it was like going home. For patients across West Tennessee, it means access to a top notch medical oncologist with the West Clinic – without the drive to Memphis.
Wang grew up in a small town in a rural area of Southern China and initially thought he would follow in his parent’s footsteps and be a teacher. His father thought medicine would be a better option and since most of his friends were also going into medicine, Wang decided to as well. At age 16, he graduated high school and left home to attend West China University of Medical Sciences.
“China is different from the United States in that you go straight from high school into medical school and it takes six years to complete. The first three are sciences math, biology and chemistry and that last three are medical school training,” said Wang. “I scored in the top three in my county on the national entrance exam and was accepted into one of the top five medical schools in the country. My twin brother scored higher than I did but he went into mathematics. Medical school was gruesome, it was challenging and demanding. And it was a totally different college life than other colleges.”
In China, the top medical students from each school are selected to complete their Doctorate of Medical Sciences at Peking Union Medical College in Beijing and Wang was one of seven from his school selected. “Peking is the number one medical college in China and was established by the Rockefeller Foundation in the early 1920’s. It is like John Hopkins in the U.S.,” said Wang. “I completed my three-year internal medicine residency training there, as well as spent a year as an attending. I then entered into a four-year program in endocrinology, the top subspecialty in Beijing, where I earned the equivalent of a PhD in molecular biology.”
In 1997, Wang thought research was what he wanted to do and on the advice of his best friend, who also happened to have been his roommate, headed to Memphis to work in the cell biology department doing pancreatic research at St. Jude’s. After almost six years at St. Jude, Wang was ready to leave research for patient care, which meant he would have to complete a residency in the United States.
It was while Wang was completing his post-graduate residency education in internal medicine at Greenwich Hospital and Yale School of Medicine that he realized hematology and oncology was what he wanted to specialize in. “I had thought cardiology at one point, but while rotating at Yale, I found the cancer cases to be unbelievably interesting and given my research background, I decided on oncology,” said Wang. “It is one of the most progressive and fastest advancing fields in medicine and one of the most rewarding to be in.”
Wang completed a four-year fellowship in hematology and oncology at the University of Washington and the Fred Hutch Cancer Research Center. “As a part of the program, you were required to do research for a year,” said Wang. “And I like research so I stayed there to be an assistant professor and do research in genitourinary oncology. When my grant ran out, it was time for me to go finish up my fellowship work.”
In the Fall of 2014, Wang felt the call of his best friend yet again to come back to Memphis where he joined the staff of the West Clinic. “My wife and I liked Memphis when I was at St. Jude. Both our boys were born here. We have lots of friends here and very familiar with the city,” said Wang. “Memphis was the first place we landed when we first came to the United States so we felt a bit more attached to it. I had also grown up in a rural type area in China, so West Tennessee was not that different of an environment.”
Wang primarily practices in a satellite clinic in the Cancer Care Center in Jackson but also sees patients one day a week in Paris. “The need here is evident and the practice is growing steadily,” said Wang. “It is nice for patients to not have to travel to Memphis for treatment because we can manage their care here. We have a 14-bed infusion suite, radiation oncologists and chemotherapy nurses in the clinic as well as access to local surgeons to work with. About all we have to send to Memphis is bone marrow transplant patients.”
While he is currently not involved in any research, Wang hopes to remedy that. “I hope to be able to bring some clinical trials onsite,” he said. “We just have to put in place the infrastructure to manage those.”
Although he spends his weekdays in Jackson, Wang’s weekends are filled with family activities in Memphis. Both boys are involved in swimming as well as school activities which keeps him running from place to place. In an effort to not lose touch with their Chinese heritage, the boys attend a Chinese school on the weekends.
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